Matt Thomas, founder and director of Taos’s newest art experiment, The Paseo, announced this week the selection of three installation pieces, presented by five artists, that will be part of the 2015 festival in Taos on September 25 and 26. “The selection of our Paseo Invited Artists is the start of the exciting journey in curating this year’s Paseo. These installation pieces are a fantastic example of what The Paseo is all about. We have local, national, and international artists creating the type of participatory work that The Paseo is known for, including large scale installation, performance, and cutting-edge projection technology.”
Vanessa Ramos -Velasquez with Derek Holzer
Brazilian and American, born in Rio de Janeiro; lives and works in Berlin. Holzer is an American living in Berlin
Ms. Ramos-Velasquez will present a piece titled A•Live. It is a video art performance with live sound art with DIY Electroaccoustics by Derek Holzer, her collaborator in this piece.
The artist describes the artwork: “A•Live is an excursion into live videomicrography where visual and aural elements share DNA and the organic and synthetic merge. A potent and portable microscope undergoing some hacking serves as instrument to create video with organic substances that seem to devour each other in the process of encounter, an allusion to the theme of Anthroppophagy in my works. The sound art apparatus of Derek Holzer is at times linked to the microscope to co-affect the organic particle movements. For Taos, the performance inspiration is of a hermeneutic nature, ‘as above, so below’: the alchemy of earthly organic matter generating a cosmic vision, creating a continuum with the wide open sky of New Mexico gracing our outdoor performance.” MORE>>
Edie Tsong and Michael Lopez
Both artists live and work in New Mexico
This participatory / performance piece comes from just down the road in Santa Fe and Albuquerque. Participants are invited to share their personal love story to on-site ‘scribes’ who will manually type out the deep, and not so deep, expressions of love. From there, Ms Tsong describes, “The participant keeps the original letter and the carbon copies are kept and passed onto a messenger who sits atop a 12-foot ladder who declares these letters to the world via bullhorn. After the letters are released to the world, they are kept on display onsite.” MORE>>
Paul Santoleri
Lives and works in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Mr Santoleri’s installation, titled Feathered Dragon, will incorporate objects he has collected, dream images, flowers, and drawings that will be presented in the Taos historic district combined with projected imagery. He says, “I imagine the piece to be mostly translucent . . .The dragon will warp around an existing structure; either a tree, streetlight, or some other urban fixture to give it both improved solidity and context.” MORE>>
About The Paseo
The Paseo planning committee will soon announce the acceptance of 20+ artist submissions to the festival’s Call for Entries. The actual number of artworks presented, Mr. Thomas explains, will depend upon the success of fundraising efforts to pay each artist an honorarium and all installation expenses.
In 2014, the first year for The Paseo, funds were raised through a Kickstarter campaign and grants from Taos Fall Arts Festival, the Town of Taos, and The Museum of Outdoor Art in Denver. Twenty-two artists participated and approximately 3,000 spectators crowded the streets of Taos to experience the artworks.
2015’s The Paseo will take place over two days, September 25 and 26, as part of the 41st annual Taos Fall Arts Festival. It is billed as “a 100% free public art event.” Pre- and post-festival events will include artist workshops, discussions and gallery exhibitions of “on-the-wall” interpretations of the street art installations. A massive after-party is planned for Saturday evening at Taos Mesa Brewing. On Sunday the 27th, a Pecha Kucha event will introduce viewers to 6-minute, 40-second presentations by many of the artists.
More information: www.paseotaos.org • taospaseo@gmail.com
